This dissertation offers a review of the theoretical research on civil society over the past few centuries and illustrates the internal conditions and background factors of the rise of the contemporary civil society. It studies the historical development of civil society, compares its development in various countries, and analyzes the entities and cultural characteristic of the contemporary civil society. By probing into the interrelationship between the government, the market and the contemporary civil society and their respective operative patterns, the paper aims to establish a theory of three-component social structure. It concludes that the transformation of social structure goes through three stages: from a united social structure, through a dual structure which comprises political society and civil society, to a three-component one which is composed of the government, the market and the contemporary civil society. Thus it helps reveal the reasons for the rise of civil society worldwide and find new ways of governance.The main arguments of this dissertation are as follows:1. The concept of civil society evolves through a sequence of three stages, namely, the classic civil society, the modern civil society and the contemporary civil society.2. As a result of the further splitting of social structure, the rise of the contemporary civil society is both inevitable and reasonable in the era of globalization. A variety of factors such as market failure and government as well as some religious, political and social ones contribute to the revival of the contemporary civil society, which is featured by the worldwide association movement since the 1970s.3. With the function of building social capital as its cultural charateristic, the contemporary civil society consists of various entities such as NGO, NPO, communities at basic levels, etc.4. Under market economy conditions, the contemporary civil society works on the